The present invention relates generally to parallel reactors, and more particularly, to a parallel reactor having a knife-edge seal.
The discovery of new materials with novel chemical and physical properties often leads to the development of new and useful technologies. The discovery of new materials depends largely on the ability to synthesize and analyze new compounds. Scientists are thus, always searching for a more efficient, economical and systematic approach for the synthesis of novel materials. Combinatorial technologies are often used to accelerate the speed of research, maximize the opportunity for breakthroughs, and expand the amount of available information. Combinatorial chemistry involves synthesizing microscale quantities of a compound and then testing thousands of compounds quickly.
The use of combinatorial technologies allows high density libraries of very large numbers of materials to be created using parallel synthesis. High throughput screens are then used to test these materials for desired properties to identify potential optimized compounds. Combinatorial technologies may be used to optimize and validate many variations of a material, formulation, or microdevice. Variables such as temperature, pressure, atmosphere, and concentration can be quickly adjusted and tested in a single experiment.
Once a combinatorial library is created, hundreds, or even thousands of compounds must be screened. Existing analytical methods and devices which were originally designed to characterize a relatively small number of compounds are often not well suited to screen combinatorial libraries. For example, in tradition catalyst development, researchers synthesize relatively large amounts of a candidate compound. The compounds are then tested to determine whether they warrant further study. For example, initial testing may involve contacting a compound with one or more fluid phase reactants. If the compound produces some minimal level of reactant conversion to a desired product, the compound undergoes more thorough characterization in a later step.
Because synthesis consumes a large fraction of the development cycle in tradition catalyst studies, researchers have expended little effort to speed up the screening step. Thus, although test reactors have been steadily improved over the years, most were simply automated to reduce labor needed to operate them.